


Love Game

by toyhto



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But Bane runs Gotham, Dark, Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, John is a prisoner, M/M, Talia died and then bomb didn't go off, Very dubious but decide for yourself, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:00:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26508616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: Something to bargain with.
Relationships: Bane (DCU)/John Blake
Comments: 23
Kudos: 122





	Love Game

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I wrote another dark story about Bane and Blake and yes I named it after a song by Lady Gaga. So, this is an alternate ending story in which Talia died and the bomb didn't go off but somehow Bane ended up running Gotham. He really doesn't like the job. But he likes one of the police officers in his prison.
> 
> About the dubious consent tag - it's definitely there for a reason. Note also that I chose not to use archive warnings for this story.
> 
> [tumblr](http://toyhto.tumblr.com)

There was a boy in one of the cells who didn’t shut up. Bane’s men joked about what it would take to silence him. He was a police officer of some sort. No one important though, Bane didn’t recognize the name when they told it to him. _John Blake._ Apparently John Blake didn’t know how to stop fighting after he had been beaten. That was how animals died: by trying to break free when they were stuck.  
_  
_ One evening, Bane found himself walking down the corridor where the boy’s cell was. There were three other men in the same cell, but he recognized John Blake easily. _Pretty_ , his men had said. They had been right. He walked past the cell and John Blake glanced at him and then never pulled his gaze away, even though he looked like he hadn’t eaten and hadn’t slept, and his face was purple from the bruises.  
  
“Don’t touch him,” Bane said the next time when he heard his men talking about Blake.  
  
After a few days, he walked past Blake’s cell again. The bruises had faded, but Blake was sitting on his cot, his arms wrapped around his knees, panting. When Bane stopped behind the bars, Blake opened his eyes and looked straight at him, but the gaze wavered.  
  
It turned out that Blake wasn’t getting much food. Bane tried to fix that, but there were a thousand things he had to take care of, a thousand things he hadn’t been supposed to deal with. He told Barsad to make sure Blake was being fed, and Barsad came back to him and said that Blake wasn’t eating.  
  
“What?” he asked.  
  
“A stubborn idiot,” Barsad said. “He’s going to start eating when he’s hungry enough.”  
  
Blake didn’t start eating. Bane waited three more days and then walked to Blake’s cell. Blake was lying on his back on the cot, but he turned his head to Bane and tried to get up. The other three men in the room were trying to be invisible. As if Bane might have wanted something to do with them.  
  
“You must eat,” he told Blake.  
  
Blake grabbed the edges of the cot and managed to sit up. He looked terrible, which wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t still been pretty. “Why am I getting more food than the others?”  
  
So, an equalitarian. “This is no place for philosophy. You refuse to eat, you die.”  
  
“I’d rather die than let you use me,” Blake said. He sounded so angry that it was almost touching. To be fair, he had a reason to be suspicious of why he was getting more food. Bane looked at him for a few seconds and made a decision.  
  
“I won’t accept that,” he told Blake and then opened the door to the cell. Blake sat on the cot, looking at him with tired eyes. He walked to the man, lifted him up onto his shoulder and carried out of the cell. Then he locked the door again even though there probably was no point. John Blake had been the only man in that cell who would have been brave enough to take a chance at trying to escape.  
  
The prison was crowded. He had to walk to the other side of the building to find an empty cell to put Blake into. Blake swore at him at first but after that, the only sounds he made were when he groaned of pain or, when Bane put him in the cell, vomited onto the floor. He was sweating and shaking and Bane had to lift him up onto the cot and make him lie down.  
  
“Now you won’t know how much food the others get,” Bane said. “You’re going to eat or I’m going to make someone force the food into you.”  
  
Blake looked at him as if he didn’t realize why Bane was doing this. Bane looked away. The next day, Barsad told him Blake had eaten most of the food but had thrown up right after. Bane asked Barsad to send a doctor to check on Blake, and Barsad asked him why.  
  
“You aren’t going to get anything out of him,” Barsad said. “And there’re prettier men here.”  
  
“Just do it,” Bane said. But he hoped Barsad wouldn’t find out that when the doctor was in Blake’s cell, he was standing outside, watching through the window in the door. Or if Barsad found out, hopefully he wouldn’t say anything. Bane watched as the doctor stripped off Blake’s clothes and checked Bane’s body with gentle efficiency and tried to get Blake talk to him. Blake didn’t say anything but let the doctor examine him.  
  
“I can’t find anything wrong with him,” the doctor said, not looking Bane in the eyes, but then again, people were like that. “Except for the sprained ankle.”  
  
Bane hadn’t known about the sprained ankle. “And the vomiting?”  
  
“That’s probably because he spent a few days not eating. It wouldn’t hurt if he ate very small proportions of food regularly. And he needs water.”  
  
That night, Barsad asked him how his pet was doing. They were alone, so he only told Barsad to go fuck himself, and Barsad said he would and told him to do the same. Instead, he took a glass of water and a plate of the stuff they were feeding the prisoners with, and then he went to Blake’s cell. He stepped in and locked the door behind himself, even though clearly there was no need. Blake looked up at him and took a deep breath like a man waiting for his execution.  
  
“I’m not going to kill you,” Bane said, and Blake looked disappointed. “Eat this.” He pushed the plate into Blake’s hand and then watched as Blake looked at it. “Really?” he asked and sat down on the cot next to Blake. Blake flinched but didn’t move away as anyone with a hint of common sense would have done, and Blake took the plate and the fork and a good grip on Blake’s chin. Gentle but efficient, like the doctor. “Open up.”  
  
Blake only opened his mouth when Bane dug his thumb hard into the muscles in Blake’s jaw. He really wished that wouldn’t be necessary the next time.  
  
“Good,” he said when he had stuffed the food into Blake’s mouth and was waiting for Blake to swallow, his hand stopping Blake from spitting. Or vomiting. “It’s okay.”  
  
Blake glared at him.  
  
“Now that you know the idea,” he said, let go of Blake’s face and put the plate and the fork into Blake’s hands, “maybe you don’t need me to feed you.”  
  
Blake took the fork. Then he ate most of the food before he stopped. Bane held the glass of water against his mouth until he drank, and the water ran down his chin and into his lap. Next time, a straw would be useful. But he didn’t throw up, even though Bane waited there for ten minutes with him, listening to his breaths and wondering what it would take to make John Blake look scared.  
  
Sometimes he made someone else go and feed John Blake, but at least once a day he did it himself. It was like feeding a cat. He had always liked cats. He told that to Barsad and Barsad looked a little sad, but he didn’t want pity, he just wanted something else to think about than Gotham and everything that was going on in this city. He fucking hated this city. He had never been supposed to stay in this city for more than half a year at most, and he wasn’t supposed to stay here alone.  
  
But John Blake didn’t remind him of Talia. John Blake let him sit on the cot next to him and watch him eating. Once, he left the door unlocked, and Blake hit his elbow into his mask and tried to run to the door, only he was too weak and only managed two steps before Bane grabbed him by his waist and dragged him back to the cot. There, Bane hit him in the face – an eye for an eye – but made sure it wouldn’t be too much. Blake didn’t finish eating until Bane threatened to hold his mouth open and feed him.  
  
“Which one of your ankles is sprained?” Bane asked, when Blake had drunk some water with the straw and was now looking at him as if he had been overstaying his welcome.  
  
Blake blinked at him.  
  
“Or do you want me to pull at both of them and see for myself?”  
  
“This one,” Blake said and raised his left foot by an inch. His voice was hoarse and confused but still angry.  
  
“Is it bad?”  
  
“If I try to walk.”  
  
“Good thing you aren’t going anywhere,” Bane said and reached to touch Blake’s foot. Blake flinched but that was probably involuntary. When Bane wrapped his fingers around Blake’s bare ankle, he could hear Blake’s breathing faltering. He brushed his thumb through the dark hair on the warm skin.  
  
“What’re you doing?” Blake asked.  
  
“It’s just sprained,” Bane said, carefully lowering Blake’s foot to rest against the floor. “Don’t put weight on it. It should heal in a week or so.” He stared at Blake until the man nodded. “How did it happen?”  
  
“ _What?_ ”  
  
“My men,” Bane said, “what did they do to you?”  
  
Blake looked at him for a long time before answering. “Nothing. Nothing they didn’t do to everyone.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yeah.” Blake frowned. “They just beat me and kicked me a little.”  
  
“The bruises on your face –“  
  
“From the beating, I’d think,” Blake said. “There’s no mirror here.”  
  
“Do you want a mirror?” Bane asked and thought he saw a surprise in Blake’s eyes.  
  
“No,” Blake said, “no, I don’t want a mirror.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
Bane watched through the window as a few of his men took Blake and some others to get a shower. His men laughed and joked about Blake’s pretty ass, and Blake kept himself steady by leaning his palm against the wall as he tried to rub himself clean. He ignored the comments. Maybe because he was cold. Or maybe his sprained ankle was aching. Or maybe he didn’t care. Or maybe he was just brave.  
  
Later, Bane brought him food and sat on the cot next to him as he ate. He was still shivering even though Bane supposed he was trying to hide it.  
  
“Are you cold?”  
  
“No,” Blake said but didn’t look at him.  
  
“The water in the showers is cold. The same treatment for everyone, like you wanted.”  
  
“Why would you…” Blake started, glancing at him. Then he turned his gaze away again and kept on eating.  
  
“My men aren’t going to do anything to you,” Bane said. The fork in Blake’s hand shook but didn’t stop. “None of that stuff they were talking about.”  
  
Blake didn’t say anything.  
  
“Aren’t you worried?”  
  
Blake opened his mouth and then closed it again. Then he put the plate onto the floor and took the glass of water, got rid of the straw and drank from the glass. “I’m not sure what difference it would make now,” he said finally. “You aren’t going to break me.”  
  
Bane took the glass of water from his hand and mashed it against the wall. He regretted it immediately. He would have to get someone clean away the shards or else Blake might hurt himself in them. He didn’t think Blake would try to take his own life, but he couldn’t be completely sure of that either. He took Blake’s face in between his hands and turned it from side to side, as much as Blake’s neck would go, and then he dragged his thumbs closer to Blake’s eyes until Blake closed them.  
  
He stroked over Blake’s stroked eyelids. Blake was shaking now. “Are you sure?”  
  
As soon as he left, he asked Barsad to take Blake a quilt and get the shards cleared out. Barsad shook his head but didn’t point out that none of this made sense.  
  
  
**  
  
  
The next time Blake was taking a shower, Bane watched him from the corner of the room. The men didn’t make any rude comments then. And Blake kept looking over his shoulder. Everything else was the same. He rubbed himself clean quickly enough that Bane barely had time to see as he cleaned his cock and wiped the crease of his ass. Someone whistled and Blake didn’t even glance around.  
  
“Why?” Blake asked that evening, when Bane was in his cell.  
  
“Why what?”  
  
“Why were you watching?”  
  
Bane took the glass of water and passed it to Blake. “I can do anything I want.”  
  
“I know,” Blake said, “but why?”  
  
He watched as Blake drank the water. “Maybe you’re just pretty.”  
  
“So, that’s what this is about?” Blake said. He was probably trying to sound brave. “That’s why you’re doing this?”  
  
“Doing what?” Bane asked and leaned in to brush his thumb against Blake’s lower lip. There was a little bit of water running down on Blake’s chin and neck.  
  
“You’re going to feed me and get me cleaned up,” Blake said, his voice smaller now, “and then you’re going to rape me.”  
  
“I think not.”  
  
“You think not.”  
  
“Yes,” he said and caught a drip of water on Bane’s throat with his fingertips.  
  
“You aren’t going to rape me.”  
  
“No,” he said. Not like that.  
  
“You should know,” Blake said slowly, “that I’m never going to do what you say. It might be better for you if you just put a bullet into my head right now.”  
  
“I don’t need a bullet to kill you,” Bane said. Then he took Blake’s face in between his hands. Blake’s face was so _small._ He tightened his grip just a little and Blake’s eyes flew wildly back and forth on his face.  
  
He let go. “You don’t want to die.”  
  
Blake took a deep breath. His hands were shaking.  
  
“It’s just that you’re pretty,” Bane said and left.  
  
  
**  
  
  
One morning, he came to the prison and heard that one of the guards had beaten Blake up at night. He told Barsad to kill the man, but Barsad glanced at him so sharply he thought about it again. Maybe killing the guard wasn’t necessary. Barsad could beat the guard the same way the guard had beaten Blake. Barsad looked unimpressed but stopped throwing glances at him.  
  
He went to see Blake. The man was sitting on the cot, his elbows leaned against his knees and his head hanging low. He glanced up when Bane opened the door but didn’t say anything. Bane sat down next to him, grabbed his chin and made him look up. He had bitten through his lower lip and there was a streak of blood dried on his chin. Otherwise, what Bane could see was just bruises.  
  
“Anything else?” he asked and touched Blake’s lower lip. Blake flinched but didn’t say anything. “Good,” Bane said and let go. “I’m going to move you elsewhere.”  
  
When he left, Blake was looking at him as if Blake suspected he was losing his mind. He didn’t give a shit. But when he told Barsad, what he got in return was the same kind of a look. He added that he wanted something pretty to fuck and Barsad looked relieved.  
  
He was staying in a hotel suite in the center. Barsad had picked it for him and he hated it, but that meant nothing. The good thing was that there was plenty of space for Blake. He put Blake in the room that he wasn’t using. There was a twin-sized bed and a dresser but not much else. The men who delivered Blake to him looked a little confused but left without saying anything, and then Bane was alone with the man who was sitting on the floor, his wrists chained together, and his face still blue from the bruises.  
  
“There’re guards at every exit,” he said to Blake. “If you try to leave this building, they’ll shoot you in the face.” Of course that wasn’t true. “Understood?”  
  
Blake nodded. Bane unchained his wrists and then took him to the bathroom, where he watched as Blake sat down in the toilet to take a piss, refusing to meet his eyes. He kind of wanted to say that Blake was being an idiot: he was injured, and peeing sitting down didn’t mean a shit. It certainly didn’t make him less of a man. But he bit back the words and stayed until Blake was finished, and then he told Blake to take off his clothes. Blake hesitated but did what he had been told. His back and side were full of bruises too.  
  
“Can you stand?” Bane asked. “For showering.”  
  
“Yes,” Blake said, sounding like he was in pain.  
  
Bane fetched a chair from the other room. When he came back, Blake was crouching, taking slow breaths with his teeth gritted together. Bane helped him to sit in the chair and then helped with the showerhead too, and Blake kept saying he could do it on his own, even though he was useless. Finally he seemed to realize that himself, closed his eyes and let Bane wash him.  
  
After, Blake tried to stand up and winced. Bane lifted him up and carried him to the bed.  
  
It was weird, sleeping with Blake in the other room. But he barely slept these days, anyway, so he stayed awake, watching the ceiling and trying to listen Blake through the door. Early in the morning, he got up from the bed and opened the door to Blake’s room as quietly as he could. Blake looked at him, lying on his side on the bed.  
  
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Bane asked and stepped into the room. Blake looked like he hadn’t slept at all.  
  
“Why am I here?” Blake asked in a hoarse voice.  
  
“No one’s going to beat you up here,” Bane said and walked to the bed. Under the blanket, Blake was wearing underpants and a shirt, the same ones he had had yesterday. Apparently he had sneaked out of the bed last night and put on the dirty clothes Bane had made him leave in the bathroom.  
  
“I’m your pet,” Blake said flatly.  
  
“You should get some sleep.”  
  
“For what?”  
  
Bane looked at him for a moment and then stood up. He walked to the bathroom and left the door open. His room had an ensuite but he could as well use Blake’s. He opened his trousers, sat down in the toilet and took a piss, and Blake stared at him from the bed.  
  
“Try to sleep a little,” he told Blake and went back to his own room.  
  
But it turned out Blake wasn’t sleeping much. The next night, Bane heard him walking around the room. Bane ignored him at first. It wasn’t like he was going to get anywhere. But it probably wasn’t good for him to walk around like that, not with his injuries, so finally Bane got up from the bed and walked to the door.  
  
“What?” Blake asked, when Bane opened the door.  
  
“You aren’t sleeping.”  
  
Blake glared at him as if he wanted to say something and tried not to.  
  
“I brought you clean clothes,” Bane said. He hadn’t had time to make Blake put them on, but he had left them in the corner of the room. Blake was wearing them now. They were too big for him and made him look even tinier than he was.  
  
“I noticed,” Blake said, staring at him. He looked like an animal in a cage, the kind of animal that would attack sooner or later.  
  
Bane closed the door behind him and stepped towards Blake with his hands raised. “You can hit me.”  
  
“ _What?_ ”  
  
“You can hit me,” he repeated. “You look like you want to. Maybe that’s going to calm you down.”  
  
“I’m not going to –“ Blake paused and took a deep breath. “I’m not going to _calm down._ ”  
  
“Okay,” Bane said. “But if you aren’t going to hit me, maybe you should go to bed and try to get some sleep. I’ve got no use for you if you’re exhausted.”  
  
Blake stared at him for a few seconds and then attacked. He let Blake get one punch in his chin before he grabbed Blake’s wrists. Blake was panting and tried to pull his wrists from Bane’s grip. Bane squeezed a little. The rhythm of Blake’s breathing slowed down until he finally fell sitting on the floor. Bane let go.  
  
“Better?” he asked.  
  
“No,” Blake said, looking away. He sounded like he was about to start crying but didn’t.  
  
  
**  
  
  
Bane told one of the cooks in the hotel’s kitchen to find something to read, something popular and not too grim. The cook brought him five books and he took them to Blake. When he came to Blake’s room, Blake was washing his underwear in the sink. He looked like he had just taken a shower.  
  
“For you,” Bane said and put the books onto the dresser.  
  
Blake just looked at him.  
  
“Show me the injuries,” he said and sat down on the bed.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Take off your clothes,” he said. He wasn’t sure why but that didn’t matter. There was no one here to witness.  
  
Blake took his clothes off slowly, grabbing the sink for support. The bruises on his ribs and back had only gotten worse. He left his boxers on and then stood there like a brave little soldier.  
  
“Come here,” Bane said, and Blake walked to him with unsteady steps, stopped in front of him and let him look.  
  
“What now?” Blake asked, when Bane had been staring at the bruises on his side for a moment.  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
Blake let out a shagged breath.  
  
“I hope you like the books,” Bane said. “I had someone else pick them. I don’t have time to read. And I wouldn’t read in English anyway.”  
  
“What am I doing here?” Blake asked. He was shaking now. He clearly tried to hide it but couldn’t.  
  
“If you want to read something else,” Bane said, “you can tell me. I’ll try to arrange that.”  
  
Blake took a deep breath. “Just get it done with.” It sounded like it took all his strength to say that.  
  
Bane leaned back. “Get what done with?”  
  
“This,” Blake said, his voice angry and desperate and more than a little scared. “This… _me._ Whatever you’re going to do with me.”  
  
“Really?” Bane asked. “What’s that?”  
  
“I don’t _know_ ,” Blake said, as if it hurt him that he didn’t. “But if you’re going to fuck me, you should just do it and not… let me wait and…”  
  
Bane raised his hands up and then slowly stood up from the bed. He walked to the door, opened it and stepped into his own room. When he turned to look back, Blake was staring at him with his mouth open and legs shaking. He looked like he was terrified and also didn’t know what was going on. He was still very pretty.  
  
“I’ll just sit here,” Bane said and sat down on his own bed. “You’ve seen my cock. It wouldn’t fit in your ass. I’m not going to fuck you.” He could see Blake breathing in and out. “I just like pretty things, alright?”  
  
Blake shook his head.  
  
“Sometimes I like pretty things,” Bane said and started taking off his gear. The day had been long and for a few times he had thought about how much better it would have been, if he had been the one who died and not Talia. This wasn’t his job. It had never been supposed to be his job. The bomb had been supposed to kill them all. “I’ll leave the door open,” he told Blake. “But if I manage to fall asleep and you try to kill me then, I’m going to chain you to that bed and let you shit in your pants. Alright?”  
  
Blake nodded and then walked to his own bed and nearly fell onto his face. Much later, Bane woke up when the room was still dark. He blinked. Blake was sitting in the armchair not far from his bed, watching him.  
  
“You can come here if you want,” he said, and Blake went back to his own room and closed the door.  
  
  
**  
  
  
He had one of his men find Blake’s old clothes. They had blood on them, but after going through laundry, they seemed alright. He took the clothes to Blake in the evening and then waited while Blake glanced from the pile of clothes to him and back.  
  
“Put them on,” he said, and Blake started taking off his clothes. He even took off his boxers and put on the ones he had been wearing with his uniform. Bane watched as he buttoned up his shirt, tugged up his trousers and did the zipper, straightened his collar, put on his tie, and looked at the coat before folding it on the back of the chair. Then he glanced at Bane, walked to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror.  
  
“I’m not a cop anymore.”  
  
“Sure you are,” Bane said. “You’re a cop in a difficult situation.”  
  
Blake flinched.  
  
“Have you read any of the books I gave you?”  
  
Blake was still watching himself in the mirror. “Yes.”  
  
“You have?”  
  
Blake nodded.  
  
“Which one?”  
  
“ _Crime and Punishment,_ ” Blake said in a flat tone and breathed in and out. Bane could see his shoulders rising and falling. “Can I ask you something?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“Are you lying to me?”  
  
Bane blinked. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”  
  
Blake turned to face him. He really looked pretty in his ridiculous uniform. “So, you’re keeping me here because you like…”  
  
“I don’t know,” Bane said. “It seemed more convenient.”  
  
“More convenient than keeping me in the prison.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“I thought…” Blake took a deep breath. “I thought you brought me here so that you could fuck me. And no one would see.”  
  
“You’re thinking a lot about fucking,” Bane said. “How old are you?”  
  
Blake stared at him. “Twenty-seven.”  
  
“ _Twenty-seven._ ”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Would it make it easier for you?” he asked. “Would it make sense? If I told you you’re here so that I can fuck you whenever I want to?”  
  
He could see Blake swallowing. “I don’t know.”  
  
“You don’t know.”  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
“Very few things in this life make sense,” he said. “You should learn that.” He walked to his own room and was about to close the door, when Blake followed. He had a stubborn look on his face. “Go back,” Bane said. Blake just glanced at him and walked around his room with hasty steps. The man clearly didn’t have a clue what he was doing.  
  
“Blake,” Bane said, and Blake flinched and turned to him. Maybe he hadn’t said Blake’s name out loud before.  
  
“John,” he tried, and Blake stopped. “Come on,” he said more gently than he had meant to. “Your life’s over. Everything you knew is gone. But you’re alive, you’ve got a bed and you can use the bathroom anytime you want and it’s warm in here and I’m taking care that you have food and water and clean clothes. I even brought you books. It could be much worse.”  
  
Blake swallowed. “I’m your prisoner.”  
  
“Yes,” Bane said, “that you are. Good for you.”  
  
Blake frowned at him.  
  


“You were a cop in Gotham,” he said. “Being my prisoner is probably the best you can have right now. Or to be dead.”  
  
Blake stared at him.  
  
“And you don’t want to die,” he said and walked to Blake. Blake took a step back but then stood still until Bane picked him up and carried back to his own room. He put Blake onto the bed, left him there and closed the door. In the morning, he went to Blake’s room and found the man sitting on the bed, reading a book. Blake glanced at him and then kept on reading, and he left.  
  
  
**  
  
“Hey,” Barsad said, walking at him. “How’s your pet?”  
  
He glanced at Barsad. It had been raining the whole day and he was getting surprisingly tired of being wet. “Fuck off.”  
  
“Not good?”  
  
“Alive.”  
  
Barsad was quiet for a few seconds. “Are you planning to keep him?”  
  
“Yes,” Bane said.  
  
That night, he was soaked through when he finally got back to the hotel. He took off his gear and walked to Blake’s room, and Blake dropped the book and picked it up again and pretended not to look at him. He walked to Blake’s bathroom, left the door open and started undressing. He fucking hated all of this, the city, being stuck in here, being alive when Talia was dead -  
  
He saw from the corner of his eye that Blake stood up. He didn’t care. He got to the shower cubicle, switched on the water and closed his eyes.  
  
When he finished his shower, Blake was there, watching him from the doorway. Blake wasn’t wearing his police uniform today but instead had the grey shirt and pants he had had in the prison. He looked like he didn’t know what to do with himself and wanted someone to tell him, just like everyone else, and they all were waiting for Bane to do that for them. But they didn’t realize that he was used to being told what to do as well.  
  
“Fuck off,” he told Blake, but Blake didn’t. He took Blake’s towel and walked past Blake, back to his room, where he dried himself and put on some clothes. Blake followed him, stopped at the doorway and leaned his shoulder against the frame. He seemed to be able to move without pain now. And the bruises were healing.  
  
“This isn’t my fucking job,” Bane told him and sat down on the bed.  
  
Blake watched him silently for a few more seconds and then walked to him. “What isn’t?”  
  
“This,” he said. “All of this.”  
  
Blake glanced around.  
  
“This city. Running it. We weren’t supposed to survive.”  
  
“Ah,” Blake said. Bane wanted to tell him that he didn’t understand a shit, he was just a cop who had been following orders. He was no one. But right now, he was standing a few feet away from Bane, breathing a bit too fast, probably scared and still stupid enough to come close to Bane. People didn’t usually do that.  
  
“What do you want?” Bane asked.  
  
“I don’t know,” Blake said. He looked surprised.  
  


“Take off your pants.”  
  
Blake opened his mouth.  
  
“I’m not going to fuck you,” Bane said. “Take off your pants.” At least for fucking second he could stop thinking about this damn city and the mess he had ended up in the middle of. He leaned back on the bed and watched as Blake opened the zipper of his trousers with shaking hands and then paused for a second before tugging his pants down to his knees. Then he stopped.  
  
“Let’s make a deal,” Bane said. “You’re going to let me jerk you off, and I’m going to give you something for it. What do you want?”  
  
Blake stared at him with a look on his face as if Bane had been holding a gun at his head.  
  
“I want you to free people,” Blake said. “People you’ve put in prison for no reason.”  
  
“Alright,” Bane said. “I jerk you off and you name one person who goes free.”  
  
“Five.”  
  
“Two,” he said, “or nothing. Take it or leave it.”  
  
Blake nodded.  
  
“Great,” Bane said. “Come closer.”  
  
Blake did. Bane put his hands on Blake’s hips, dug his fingers under the waistband of Blake’s boxers and then tugged them down. He had seen Blake’s dick before. There was nothing special about it. He had never been enthusiastic about dicks anyway. But now this one was almost at his face, still soft even though Blake was breathing hard. Maybe that was from fear. He hoped not.  
  
“Sit down,” he said, and Blake did. He took Blake’s dick in his hand and started stroking it, and Blake went incredibly quiet, but his dick wasn’t so soft anymore. Clearly at least one part of him liked being in Bane’s hands. And he was quiet only until his cock was hard and leaking, and then he groaned in a way that sounded like it was slipping from him. Bane squeezed the head of his dick and he groaned again. He had his eyes closed and he was panting and grabbing the sheets and very much not looking at Bane. Maybe no one had touched him like this for a long time. Maybe he had almost forgotten what it would be like. Maybe he was imagining someone else there at Bane’s place, someone with softer hands and a nicer voice. Someone who read books.  
  
Bane dragged it out for as long as he could, but finally Blake came without a warning, just spilled into his hand and opened his eyes. He was staring at Bane, looking more terrified than Bane remembered ever seeing him. His face was flushed and the split on his lower lip was still red and angry. He was perfect.  
  
“Go wash yourself,” Bane said, “and try to sleep.”  
  
Later, Blake named two police officers and Bane let them go. When Bane came back to the hotel that night, Blake didn’t look him in the eyes.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“I want to do it again,” he told Blake one evening, stopping at Blake’s door. The day had been too long. The sleep-deprivation was finally catching with him and it had been raining all day and he had shot one of his men. Fuck how he hated Mondays.  
  
But Blake was pretty. He was sitting on his own bed where Bane had left him this morning, and he looked frustrated and angry and scared and a little curious and completely unable to hide any of that. He was wearing his police uniform today but not the tie.  
  
“What?” he asked, looking at Bane. As if he didn’t know.  
  
“I want to jerk you off,” Bane said, stepping into the room. “What do you want from it?”  
  
Blake blinked and then cleared his throat. “Five people go free. And no bargaining.”  
  
“Five people,” Bane repeated.  
  
“Yeah,” Blake said in a thin voice. Surely he had thought about every possible route to escape over and over again. Surely he knew he was trapped. But still he kept his eyes fixed on Bane like he had something to bargain with. He did. But it was a little off-putting that he seemed to know that.  
  
“Okay,” Bane said. “I jerk you off, you name five people who go free.”  
  
Blake nodded slowly.  
  
“But,” Bane said, “you let me put my finger into your ass.”  
  
He could see from Blake’s face that the man trying not to look afraid. “Ten people.”  
  
“No,” he said and sat down on the edge of Blake’s bed. “Five people and my finger in your ass. That’s my deal. But I promise it’s not going to hurt.”  
  
“Of course it is,” Blake said, staring at him.  
  
“Not if you trust me.”  
  
Blake laughed.  
  
“Come on,” Bane said, watching him. “When have I tried to hurt you?”  
  
“You put me in your prison.”  
  
“And then I took you out of there.”  
  
“Into another prison.”  
  
“If it makes no difference for you, I can take you back there.”  
  
Blake’s throat jumped as he swallowed. “Five people?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“What if…”  
  
“What?”  
  
“What if you can’t get me off?”  
  
“Five people,” Bane said. “If I can’t, it’s on me.”  
  
Blake studied his face for a moment before nodding.  
  
“Take your clothes off and lie on your back,” he said. He wanted to tell Blake that Blake was wrong. He trusted Bane. If it wasn’t trust, what was it? He undressed for Bane and lay down on his back. He sprawled his knees when Bane asked him to, taking sharp breaths because he was still expecting it to hurt. But he trusted Bane. He knew Bane had all the keys to the doors that were keeping him here, and he knew Bane could have changed the rules of their little game any time. And still he kept quiet when Bane slicked his forefinger with lube and brushed it against his hole. He believed Bane would deliver what had been promised.  
  
He was right, of course. But he didn’t know that.  
  
It was all about balance. Bane took Blake’s cock in his hand and tugged up and down for a moment until Blake forgot about the finger poking at his entrance. Then he pushed a little, testing how tightly Blake’s ass clenched, and Blake looked at him with wide eyes, a warm hand on his cock forgotten. He handled Blake’s cock and Blake’s ass and took turns until finally Blake started to lose a grip of what was happening, and then everything got a lot easier. He pushed his fingertip inside and Blake winced but not from pain. He squeezed Blake’s cock and Blake closed his eyes. He watched the way Blake’s face was telling him everything the man would never say out loud, and Blake glanced at him and licked his lips and shivered and clenched around his finger and leaked into his hand. He wondered what Blake was seeing. Probably nothing good.  
  
Then he pushed his finger into Blake, as deep as it would go, and Blake took a ragged breath, looking a little betrayed.  
  
“Did it hurt?” he asked.  
  
“Yeah,” Blake said in a breathless voice.  
  
Bane crooked his finger, searching until he found the right spot. “And this?”  
  
Blake didn’t answer but his mouth fell open and the sounds he was making weren’t so coherent anymore. To be fair it was difficult to judge from his face if it was pain or pleasure that was spiking him. But Bane supposed he would make that clear afterwards. Now he wasn’t doing anything, no, all that he was capable of was getting fucked by Bane’s forefinger while Bane dragged him closer and closer and kept him there until he realized what was happening.  
  
He opened his eyes. He was shaking and there was blood on his lower lip. He had split the old wound himself.  
  
“What –“  
  
“You’re a nice guy,” Bane said and squeezed his fingers tightly around the base of Blake’s dick. “What do you say?”  
  
Blake stared at him for a few seconds. “Please –“  
  
He tugged harder and at the same time, brushed his fingertip against Blake’s prostate. Blake came with a muffled groan and then lay on the bed with his eyes closed, until Bane pulled his finger out and went to wash his hands.  
  
When he came back from the bathroom, Blake had rolled onto his side and was staring at nothing. He cleaned Blake’s stomach and thighs as well as he could with a napkin, and then he tugged the blanket up to Blake’s chin and pushed his fingers through Blake’s hair. It was damp with sweat. He picked up the book on the side table, opened it and started reading out loud, and Blake didn’t say anything to him.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Are you alright?” he asked the next morning.  
  
“No,” Blake said, putting on his socks. He had taken a shower already and looked like he had decided something and was going to get himself shot in the head while trying to make it happen. It was sweet but very unnecessary.  
  
“Yeah,” Bane said slowly, watching him from the doorway. “I meant, how is your ass? Did it hurt?”  
  
Blake squeezed his mouth shut.  
  
“Great,” Bane said. “Now, can I have some names? I think I owe you five people.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
He told Blake that the men Blake had named had been let out of the prison. Blake looked glad. He had been doing push-ups on the floor when Bane had walked in, and now he was standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, watching Bane and almost smiling because of those five people. After Bane left, he could hear through the door that Blake went back to doing push-ups.  
  
A few days later, Bane came to the hotel after midnight. He had taken off his gear and was sitting on the edge of the bed, when Blake opened the door to his room. He looked at Blake, and Blake glanced at the door, apparently surprised that it hadn’t been locked.  
  
“You aren’t afraid of me,” Blake said.  
  
“No.”  
  
Blake swallowed and walked into the room. He didn’t seem to know where he was going. He was wearing a t-shirt from the prison and boxers but nothing else, and he looked like he had been exercising in his room again. It was kind of stupid but sweet, since he wasn’t going anywhere and he knew that. Or maybe he was just bored.  
  
“I don’t need you now,” Bane told him. “You can go.”  
  
Blake stopped and rubbed the side of his nose. His forehead was tingling with sweat. He looked like he was trying to appear calm and wasn’t doing a very good job at it.  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“Nothing,” Blake said and looked around in the room. “Can I…”  
  
“What?”  
  
Blake took a deep breath. “I need to do something, I can’t just…”  
  
Bane sat up straight on the bed. “You need to do something.”  
  
“Yeah,” Blake said, not looking at him now.  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Blake said, “just… I can’t just sit here while all those people…”  
  
“Sure you can,” Bane said and waited for a few seconds. Blake didn’t leave. “You want to play?”  
  
Blake turned to look at him.  
  
“Do you?”  
  
“Yes,” Blake said. He sounded brave. Stupid little soldier.  
  
“Alright,” Bane said and crossed his hands in his lap. “Ten people. I’ll let ten people go. Now make me an offer.”  
  
“An –“  
  
“What are you going to give me,” he said, “if I let you name ten people who will go free?”  
  
Blake stared at him. “I’ll jerk you off.”  
  
He didn’t really remember what smiling felt like, but he supposed it was something like this. “No.”  
  
Blake looked surprised and worried. That was sweet. “No?”  
  
“No,” Bane said, “that’s not what I want. That’s not worth ten people for me.”  
  
Blake glanced at his crotch and then at his face again.  
  
“I can jerk off just fine on my own. Not worth ten people.”  
  
“Okay,” Blake said slowly. He looked more nervous now, and more determined. “I’ll… I can… what if I suck you?”  
  
Bane waited for a few seconds, mostly to enjoy the look on Blake’s face. Then he shook his head.  
  
“No?”  
  
“To be fair,” he said to Blake, “I don’t think you’d be very good at that. You haven’t done it before, have you?”  
  
Blake just stared at him, looking hurt.  
  
“It’s a skill,” Bane said as nicely as he could. “You need to practice to become good at it. It’s not going to be much use for me if you just let me stick my dick into your mouth. And your mouth’s not that big. It’d be uncomfortable for you and not satisfying for me.”  
  
Blake cleared his throat and took a step back.  
  
“You need a shower,” Bane said. He hadn’t meant to. But Blake looked like he was about to come to his senses. And he _had_ said he wanted to play. He just didn’t have the imagination. “You’re sweating. Have you been exercising again?”  
  
“Yeah,” Blake said slowly.  
  
“What for? There’s no one else here to fight with except me, and you will never beat me. No matter how many push-ups you do.”  
  
Blake didn’t answer.  
  
“Okay,” Bane said, “do whatever you want. Only now you’re sweaty all over and you need a shower. I’ll do that.”  
  
Blake blinked. “You’ll… what?”  
  
“I’ll wash you. For ten people.”  
  
Blake opened his mouth and then closed it again.  
  
“And you’ll sleep in my bed.”  
  
Blake glanced at the bed. “You want me to…”  
  
“It won’t hurt. I promise.”  
  
Blake stared at him as if wondering if he was crazy. He wondered that sometimes too. But not now. And wasn’t that, like, a question of the point of view?  
  
“Just a shower,” Blake said, “and sleeping in your bed?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“I don’t understand.”  
  
“I don’t care,” Bane said and stood up. Blake flinched. Maybe the push-ups had made him think he was bigger than he really was. “Yes or no?”  
  
“Yes,” Blake said. He didn’t sound certain. But he sounded brave.  
  
“Great,” Bane said, stepped to him and lifted him up. He could feel the protest in Blake’s body as he held Blake in his arms and walked to the ensuite. Blake grabbed his shoulder as if there was a chance he might ever drop someone so small as Blake. But he didn’t say anything, and Blake didn’t say anything. Blake squeezed his shoulder and he wished he hadn’t lost his sense of smell with everything else he had lost. Then maybe he would have been asking for different things. Maybe he would have asked Blake to let him take Blake’s dick in his mouth. He would have sucked Blake off and Blake would have pulled at his hair and made all the noises that were imaginable.  
  
Or maybe he would have kissed Blake. Blake would have asked for… for fifteen people, or twenty, and Bane would have bargained a little, but Blake knew what he was worth, didn’t he? Twenty people. And Blake could kiss him on the mouth. And he would have agreed, eventually, and then he would have taken Blake’s little head in between his hands, brushed his thumb against Blake’s lower lip, teased a little, and Blake’s eyes would have moved back and forth on his face, and he would have leaned forward, slowly, let Blake have time to elbow him on the throat or kick him in the groin or whatever Blake would choose, but Blake would choose to do nothing. And then they would kiss.  
  
He kept Blake in his arms until they were in the ensuite and the water was running and Blake’s breathing was warm and too fast against this ear. Then he put Blake onto the floor and watched as Blake staggered. He told Blake to be still and Blake tried, leaning his hand against the wall for balance. Bane told him he was being good, and he stared at Bane and breathed in and out too but only flinched, when Bane took off first his t-shirt and then his boxers. His dick was small and soft.  
  
“Did you want me to –“  
  
“No,” Bane said and touched Blake’s face. Blake didn’t pull away. “Just the shower. And sleeping in my bed.”  
  
Blake gave a small nod but was tense as hell as Blake took the showerhead and started. He tried to be slow, because Blake was scared, and because he had all the time in the world. Nothing else was going to happen tonight. He washed Blake all over, shampooed his hair, rubbed his face gently with his thumbs and apologized when Blake flinched, then later apologized again before pushing his fingers to the creak of Blake’s ass. Blake closed his eyes as Bane took his balls in his hand, and then his dick, cleaned everything, and when Blake took a sharp breath, he told Blake to be quiet. He didn’t really want that, of course. But the pleasure was worth it when Blake went all silent for him and let him take care of everything.  
  
“Good boy,” he said, turned off the water, wrapped Blake in the towel and carried to his bed. There, he left Blake waiting as he found clean clothes – his clothes, so they were too big for Blake and would look ridiculous. He dressed Blake and Blake sat down on the edge of the bed, watching him and doing whatever he said. “Move up,” he said, and Blake did, “raise your arms,” he said, and Blake did. Blake was still afraid but not so tense anymore. Maybe that was what he was afraid of.  
  
“Why’re you doing this?” Blake asked, when Bane had put him in the bed and was lying beside him. The light was off, the room was quiet, and outside the rain had gotten softer.  
  
“No reason,” he said and heard from the silence that Blake wasn’t happy. “Are you complaining? Did you want me to jerk you off instead?”  
  
“No, I…” Blake took a deep breath. “Are you lonely or something?”  
  
He rolled onto his back. It was good that the bed was so large. He didn’t want to accidentally crush Blake under his body in his sleep. “Aren’t you?”  
  
“No,” Blake said.  
  
He glanced at Blake.  
  
“I mean, that’s not why I’m doing this.”  
  
“Really,” he said. “And why are you doing this?”  
  
“For those people,” Blake said immediately, like he had practiced it in his mind over and over again.  
  
“Of course,” Bane said. “Of course I’m lonely. But that’s not why I’m doing this.”  
  
“Why are you then?”  
  
“I don’t know,” he said.  
  
In the morning, Blake looked incredibly tired. He probably hadn’t slept at all. Bane ignored him, put on his gear and left. When he came back at night, he found Blake wandering around in his room. He told Blake to get back to his own room and then locked the door.  
  
  
**  
  
  
Barsad asked him about the people he was letting out of the prison for no reason. He ignored the question. Barsad looked at him for a moment and said that maybe it would be better if he took another pet. For a change. He told Barsad that if something happened to John Blake, he would hold Barsad personally responsible.  
  
At night, he went back to the hotel and found Blake reading in bed. He looked tired.  
  
“Two people,” Bane said, walking to him. “And you let me jerk you off.”  
  
Blake put his book slowly away. “Five.”  
  
“Two,” Bane said, and Blake nodded.  
  
He slipped his finger into Blake’s hole eventually, and Blake didn’t say anything, but at that point he wasn’t saying much anyway. He came into Bane’s hand, and Bane pulled out his finger and then fetched a wet cloth and cleaned the cum from Blake’s stomach and pubic hair the best he could. Blake was still breathing quickly and not looking at him.  
  
“Good night,” he said and went to his own room.  
  
  
**  
  
  
The next time he had Blake’s dick in his hand and Blake was already leaking and panting and ready to be pushed over the edge, he lifted Blake up from the bed and arranged them so that Blake was sitting in his lap. He had his left arm draped around Blake’s back and Blake squeezed his fingers into his shoulder and, after a few strokes, pressed his mouth against Bane’s neck. His breathing was warm and moist, and he didn’t seem to realize he was drooling a little. Bane finished him and held him and didn’t let him go until he started wriggling.  
  
“I’m not gay,” Blake said the next day, walking to Bane’s room.  
  
Bane glanced at him and then went back to taking off his gear. “Does it matter?”  
  
Blake didn’t say anything, but the silence sounded unhappy.  
  
“You’re my prisoner,” Bane said, checking the fastening of the mask like he always did. “I don’t give a shit about if you’re gay or not.” When he looked at Blake again, Blake seemed relieved. Stupid little boy.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“I know you miss her,” Barsad said to him. They had spent the whole day talking to multiple people about how this city was going to be run. No one called it politics but it was exactly that.  
  
He glanced at Barsad and then kept on walking.  
  
“But this isn’t going to last forever,” Barsad said.  
  
“Really.”  
  
“Yeah. We’ll arrange everything, and then we’ll leave. Find something else to do.”  
  
Bane nodded.  
  
“You know,” Barsad said slowly, “she would be –“  
  
“Fuck off. Don’t tell me she would be proud.”  
  
“Well, she would probably be jealous of your pet.” Barsad paused. “How is John Blake, anyway?”  
  
“Still alive.”  
  
“And being fucked.”  
  
“Yeah,” Bane said. In a manner of speaking, yes.  
  
“Lucky boy.”  
  
“He’s doing a lot of push-ups too,” Bane said, and Barsad laughed. But there was something off-putting about the way Blake was exercising in his room, his face determined like it really mattered. It was like watching a bird fly around in its cage. And Bane was away most of the time, so he didn’t really know how much time Blake used exercising. When Blake told him he had read all the books, he was almost relieved.  
  
“I would read more,” Blake said, watching him hesitantly, “if there was –“  
  
“Just ask me,” he said.  
  
Blake cleared his throat. He looked like he was already thinking about what it would cost him. Maybe two fingers in his ass? “Would you get me more books?”  
  
“Yes,” Bane said. “I will get you more books.” Then he went to his own room and closed the door.  
  
It took him a few days until he had time to think about the books. Then he started wondering what Blake would want. The man had said nothing about the books Bane had given him, but surely he had liked some more than the others.  
  
That night, he went to Blake’s room and found Blake walking a circle on the floor.  
  
“The books,” he said. “Did you like them?”  
  
Blake blinked at him.  
  
“The ones you already read. What did you think of them? What kind of books should I get you?”  
  
“I…” Blake took a deep breath. “You want me to tell you what kind of books I like?”  
  
Well, it sounded crazy. “Yes.”  
  
“Okay,” Blake said and then told him. He wrote it down. Later, he gave the note to the same man who had gotten him the first books for Blake. In the evening, he put the pile of books onto Blake’s dresser and Blake looked at him as if he had given Blake the whole library.  
  
“Anything else?” he asked, inspecting the cover of the top book in the pile. “Do you need anything else?”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“I don’t know. How’s the food?”  
  
“Alright,” Blake said. There was something weird about his voice. Bane turned to look at him, and he looked right back. “You don’t eat it. The food.”  
  
“No,” Bane said. It was obvious were this was going and he hated it, but still for some reason he didn’t seem to be walking away.  
  
“Because of your mask.”  
  
“That’s none of your business.”  
  
“I’m your prisoner,” Blake said, watching him. “You can silence me if you want to.”  
  
He picked the first book in the pile and showed it to Blake. “What’s this?”  
  
“I guess it’s a mystery.”  
  
“Sounds like rubbish.”  
  
“Bane,” Blake said, “what does the mask do? Can you take it off?”  
  
He glanced at the door. Then he glanced at Blake again. Blake was wearing his shirt and it looked like a gown. “No,” he said. “It’d be extremely painful.”  
  
“So it deals with pain.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“How did you –,“ Blake started and then seemed to stop himself.  
  
“What did happen to me. Why would you ask that?”  
  
Blake obviously didn’t know the answer.  
  
“I had a very bad day,” Bane said. “Maybe I should get you more clothes. That shirt is too big for you.”  
  
Blake nodded slowly.  
  
“And a better blade. You look like a kid shaved your chin.”  
  
“I don’t,” Blake said and then blinked. “I didn’t think it’d make a difference here.”  
  
“I don’t think all your push-ups and squats are going to make a difference,” Bane said. “If you want, I can have someone go to your home and pick up some of your things. If they are still there. If you have something there that you want.”  
  
“No,” Blake said immediately, staring at him with an expression that was hard to read. He looked surprised and like Bane had hit him in the face. “I don’t want anything from there.”  
  
“Sure?”  
  
Blake nodded.  
  
“Alright,” Bane said. “Tell me if you change your mind.”  
  
He got Blake new clothes and a blade. Then he made Blake stand still in front of the mirror as he shaved his chin. Blake’s throat shifted under the blade as he breathed in and out. He probably realized that Bane was dragging this out but didn’t say anything. Only when Bane had finished with him, he said, “tell me how you got the mask.”  
  
“That’s not how we play this game,” Bane said, stroking Blake’s cheek with his thumb.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Your pet tried to run,” said the man at the front door.  
  
Bane walked past the man, then stopped and turned. “What?”  
  
“Yeah. We caught him before he reached the staircase, put him back in your room and taped him to the chair.”  
  
“Thank you,” Bane said and walked to the elevator. So, Blake had almost reached the staircase. That had been something like fifteen steps. He hoped Blake had enjoyed his freedom.  
  
He found Blake exactly where the man was supposed to be. He locked the door behind him, checked it, walked to Blake and ripped off the tapes from around his wrists and ankles. Then he slapped Blake in the face.  
  
While he walked to the door, he could hear, from behind his back, Blake breathing in and out. There were no signs that Blake would have tried to break the lock on the door. Bane walked to Blake’s room and checked the door in there too – the door was locked, the lock was intact, there were no marks of Blake trying to break it.  
  
So, Bane had forgotten to lock the door.  
  
“I told you that you aren’t going to get out,” he said when he went back to his own room. Blake was still sitting in the chair but his eyes were fixed on Bane now.  
  
“You told me I was going to get shot in the face at the front door,” Blake said, watching him. There was a red splotch on the side of his face where Bane had hit him.  
  
“You didn’t get to the front door,” Bane said. He stopped walking only when he was standing so close to Blake that the man had to tilt his chin up to look him in the eyes. “When was that?”  
  
“In the morning,” Blake said.  
  
“Right after I left.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Bane turned away, took a deep breath, turned back to Blake and kicked the chair so that it fell backwards. Blake fell with it. There was a hollow sound when the back of his head hit the floor, and he cried out before going silent again.  
  
“What did you think? That if I bring you books, I’m going to let you go too?”  
  
“It’s not just books,” Blake said from the floor, looking tired and beaten. Then he winced and closed his eyes, and a wet patch began growing at the front of his trousers with the smell of urea following.  
  
“You’ve been sitting in that chair since the morning.”  
  
“Yeah,” Blake said, his eyes still closed. “Can I –“  
  
“Shut up,” Bane said, picked him up from the floor and carried him to the ensuite. He wasn’t fighting now. He let Bane rip off his clothes and push him into the shower cubicle, and then he washed himself while Bane watched. His legs didn’t seem steady, but then again, they had been taped to the chair apparently for more than twelve hours. When he stumbled on his feet, Bane caught him and dragged him out of the shower.  
  
“How’s your head?” Bane asked, when Blake was sitting on his own bed again, wearing clean clothes and looking too tired to care about anything.  
  
“Fine,” Blake said.  
  
“I wasn’t trying to break anything.”  
  
Blake glanced at him and sighed. “I know.”  
  
“You know?”  
  
“I’ve seen videos of you killing people with your bare hands.”  
  
He nodded slowly. “Alright. Good.”  
  
“It’s not good,” Blake said slowly. “I can’t stay here.”  
  
“Of course you can. If you try to leave, my men will drag you back here like today.”  
  
“But not kill me.”  
  
Bane took a deep breath. “Maybe if you’re annoying enough.”  
  
“I can’t stay here,” Blake repeated, not smiling even a little bit. Maybe it had been stupid to expect him to. But it seemed that Bane was doing a lot of stupid things lately. “I need to get out. I need to _try._ ” It sounded like a threat. It probably shouldn’t have.  
  
“My men think that I’m going to beat the shit out of you for trying to escape,” Bane said. “Sleep in my bed and I won’t.”  
  
“Okay,” Blake said. Bane helped him to stand up and he didn’t object even though he certainly didn’t need help anymore. He walked to Bane’s bed on his own, sat down, and then after a moment took off his shirt. He lay down on his back on the mattress, crossed his hands on his stomach and watched the ceiling while Bane took off his gear and his clothes, went to the ensuite to take a piss, double-checked the doors and the windows and that his guns had been locked away, and then finally settled in the bed next to Blake.  
  
“I don’t understand why you like me,” Blake said, still not looking at him.  
  
“I don’t like you.”  
  
Blake was quiet for a moment. “Liar.”  
  
Bane took a deep breath.  
  
“Why didn’t you lock the door?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“How is this going to end?”  
  
“I don’t know,” he said and turned to Blake. “I didn’t take you to my bed to suffer from your questions.”  
  
Blake bit his lip. The old wound on it was already angrily red. It had probably split open when Bane had hit him. “Why did you take me to your bed?” Blake asked, turning to look at him. His face was going to bruise. His dark little eyes were tired and trusting. He was incredibly pretty.  
  
“Shut the fuck up,” Bane said.  
  
“If you tell me what you’re planning to do with me,” Blake said, “I will let you stick your finger into my ass again.”  
  
“I could do that anyway.”  
  
“Then why won’t you?”  
  
Blake closed his eyes. “Not worth the trouble.”  
  
“You want me to say _yes_ ,” Blake said. “I don’t understand why.”  
  
“If you shut up now and go to sleep, I will take you out for a walk tomorrow.”  
  
“Like a dog.”  
  
“I think it’s going to be a sunny day,” he said and opened his eyes. Blake looked quickly away from him.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“Good,” Bane said. Blake rolled onto his side, facing away from him. There were moles on his neck and on his back, and a few pimples, and hair on his skin that Bane only saw when he leaned in close. His skin looked soft.  
  
Bane breathed in. “Can I touch you?”  
  
“No,” Blake said.  
  
  
**  
  
  
A week later, Bane came back to the hotel for the night and his men told him they had caught Blake in the staircase. This time, Blake had managed to knock out the boy who had brought him food. There was a question underneath about why Bane didn’t keep his pet chained to the bed or something, anything to keep him from hurting people who had more value than him. Luckily the boy whose face Blake had elbowed had later took his turn in kicking Blake’s ribs, so he didn’t seem bitter.  
  
Blake was lying on the floor of his room. His hands were taped behind his back and there was blood in his mouth. Bane took him to the bathroom without saying anything. He supposed there wasn’t anything to say. He undressed Blake and cleaned him and watched as he took a piss sitting in the toilet, and then carried him to his own bed, naked.  
  
“I have ibuprofen if you want it.”  
  
“No,” Blake said, not looking at him. He sounded like he was in pain.  
  
“Anything broken?”  
  
“No,” Blake said. “I don’t know.”  
  
“I want you to sleep here,” Bane said, and Blake didn’t protest. “Twenty people if you ask me to touch you.”  
  
Blake nodded.  
  
“I need you to say it.”  
  
Blake looked at him. “Can you touch me?” He looked incredibly tired. But there was no way he had given up yet. He had only tried to escape twice. He took a deep breath and then winced. That was probably the kick in the ribs. “Please?”  
  
“Okay,” Bane said. “Like what?”  
  
Blake blinked at him. “Like… can you… can you put your finger into my ass, and then grab my cock and jerk me off?”  
  
He told himself he was going to get something good for Blake to eat tomorrow. Something Blake would like. If he couldn’t find out what that was, he would get Blake everything. “I don’t think you really want that,” he said.  
  
Blake was quiet for a long time. “Can you…”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Can you stroke my hair?”  
  
Bane nodded and lay down on the bed beside him. “Like this?”  
  
“Yeah,” Blake said. His hair was still wet from the shower.  
  
“You can ask of anything.”  
  
“Let me go,” Blake said in a voice that was barely audible.  
  
Bane kept petting his hair. He could hear laughter coming through the walls. There were distant steps, sounds of traffic from outside the building, the low humming of the air conditioning, and the too-fast rhythm of Blake breathing in and out.  
  
“You can hold me,” Blake said. “Like, hug me.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Please.”  
  
Bane sat up on the bed and started taking off his gear. Blake looked up at him. His dick was half-hard but he seemed willing to ignore that, so Bane did as well. He shrugged of his vest and his shirt and settled lying on the bed again, shifted closer to Blake until there was no distance left, and then he wrapped his arm around Blake.  
  
  
**  
  
  
The next time, Bane’s men left Blake in the bathroom. Bane found him there. He had vomited onto the floor and pissed himself too. He didn’t say anything until he was in Bane’s bed. There, he let Bane settle him on his side and then turned his head and said, “you should hit me.”  
  
“I don’t want to,” Bane said and got out of the bed to take off his gear.  
  
“Maybe if you did, they wouldn’t.”  
  
“I can ask my men not to touch you.”  
  
Blake glared at him. “Really not the point.”  
  
“You need to stop doing that,” he said, lying down next to Blake.  
  
“I can’t,” Blake said, shifting closer to him. “Bane?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Ask me of something.”  
  
“Aren’t you tired?”  
  
“I can’t sleep yet.”  
  
Bane closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, Blake was looking at him over his shoulder. “Ten people,” he said. “I will jerk you off with my finger in your ass.”  
  
“Ten people? You have at least five hundred police officers still in your prisons. And I can’t even think about the rest –“  
  
“They are all there for a reason. Maybe not a good one. But that’s life.”  
  
“You’re an asshole,” Blake said, watching him. “Just one?”  
  
“I said, ten people.”  
  
“Yeah.” Blake cleared his throat. “I meant, just one finger?”  
  
He stared at Blake.  
  
“You’re smiling,” Blake said.  
  
“No, I’m not.”  
  
“Bullshit,” Blake said and turned to face him. “Want me to take off my boxers?”  
  
“No, I’ll do it,” he said.  
  
He managed to push two fingers into Blake. Blake looked like it hurt, and Bane had a feeling that maybe it was some kind of revenge, making him see the pain on Blake’s face while he was the reason for it. But Blake didn’t tell him to stop, so he didn’t. He had Blake on his back, and when Blake was getting close to coming, he started saying things like _fuck_ and _please_ and _Bane_ in seemingly meaningless order. Bane finished him with his hand and hoped he could have kissed him.  
  
“What’s your name?” he asked later, when the sound of Blake’s breathing hinted he was about to doze off.  
  
“You know my name,” Blake said, not looking at him.  
  
He followed the line of Blake’s left shoulder blade with his thumb. “I want you to tell me.”  
  
“What do I get?”  
  
He swallowed and pressed the flat of his palm between Blake’s shoulder blades. Blake breathed in and out under his touch. “I’ll get you a chocolate bar.”  
  
“My name is John,” Blake said.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“I heard he tried to run,” Barsad said one morning. It was snowing and Bane’s toes were freezing. “Again.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Sounds inconvenient.”  
  
Bane shrugged.  
  
“If it’s company that you’re looking for,” Barsad said, looking away from him, “there’re plenty of men who would happily warm your bed. Plenty of _your_ men.”  
  
“I don’t need _company_.”  
  
“Everyone needs company,” Barsaid said and lit a cigarette. “But it would be bad if you fell in love with him or something.”  
  
Bane didn’t bother to answer that.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Why are you doing this?” John asked, shaking in Bane’s lap.  
  
“Why are you doing this?” Bane asked. He was fondling John’s balls.  
  
John had his arms wrapped around Bane’s shoulders for support. He dug his fingers into Bane’s skin and rested his head against Bane’s. “I don’t know.”  
  
“For the greater good,” Bane said and slipped his forefinger into John’s ass. John clenched around it.  
  
“You’re doing this for greater good?”  
  
“No.” Bane bit his lip. “ _You_ are. But there’s no such thing.”  
  
“Of course there is,” John said, wincing as Bane slid his finger deeper. “You’re just a cynic.”  
  
“Yeah, well, but I have you.”  
  
“Do you?” John asked and flinched when Bane crooked his finger. Then he took in a shaky breath. “ _Do_ you?”  
  
Bane had him come in two minutes. There was cum on John’s stomach and thighs and in Bane’s hands, and John was lying on his back, a panting shaking mess. Bane wiped the cum in his hand to John’s chest, got up from the bed, walked to the ensuite and locked the door.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Why?” he asked two days later, when John had tried to escape again. He had a black eye but didn’t try to pull his face away when Bane took it in between his hands.  
  
“I have to,” John said.  
  
“You aren’t going to get anywhere. I won’t let you. You could just…”  
  
“Just sleep in your bed and let you feed me and fuck me.”  
  
“I’m not fucking you.”  
  
“I’ve noticed,” John said slowly. “Are you saving it for a special occasion?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“You mean that.”  
  
Bane brushed his fingertips against John’s lips.  
  
“Why?” John asked, his breath warm on Bane’s fingers.  
  
“I’ve told you. You wouldn’t like it.”  
  
John nodded. He let his mouth open when Bane slipped his finger inside. “I need to try to get out,” John said. “I need to be me.”  
  
“You just get beaten up.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I don’t see what’s the point.”  
  
“Yeah,” John said. His eyes looked sad. Bane asked him if he wanted to sleep in his own bed, but he only shook his head. In the bed, he moved closer to Bane until Bane draped his arm around his waist. He was warm and alive.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Tell me something,” Bane said, and John told him about his childhood, alone in places where everyone was a stranger.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Aren’t you afraid that he’s going to kill you in your sleep?” Barsad asked.  
  
Bane shook his head.  
  
“He was a cop, you know.”  
  
“He’s tiny. He can’t kill me.”  
  
“If you’re sure,” Barsad said, watching him. “You can imagine what that would look like.”  
  
That night, he had John on elbows and knees, naked and shaking, facing the mattress and saying his name, as he squeezed his fingers tighter around John’s dick and crooked his finger in John’s ass. When John came and collapsed onto the mattress, Bane climbed onto him and pressed his face against the back of John’s neck. He could feel the warmth, but John shivered probably because the mask was cold.  
  
The next day, John tried to escape again. He was still bleeding when Bane came to him in the evening. And Bane couldn’t tell his men not to touch the prisoner who tried to escape, because he knew what that would look like.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“I’ll make you a deal,” John said, but there was something odd in his tone. It was almost spring, and he was bruised all over and limping badly. “You can do whatever you want with me. For one day. And then you let me go.”  
  
“No,” Bane said, but John just kept looking at him.  
  
  
**  
  
  
He put a bag over John’s head and carried him out of the hotel, and the men who watched them go seemed relieved. The sun was shining. He put John to the passenger’s seat and started driving. It was early in the morning and the streets were almost empty. He was driving slowly and listening to John’s breathing coming from inside the bag. Once or twice he thought about asking if John was okay there, but he didn’t think he could handle hearing John’s voice.  
  
He drove outside the city, stopped the car and put John at the bus stop, the bag still over his head, a gun in the front pocket of his coat, and his hands tied behind his back. Then he drove back to Gotham.  
  
  
**  
  
  
He told his men that he had killed John.  
  
“I hope he doesn’t come back,” Barsad said to him later.  
  
  
**  
  
  
It turned out there were plenty of men who wanted to warm his bed. He wasn’t sure they did it willingly and not because they thought it would benefit them somehow, but that didn’t seem to make much of a difference. He didn’t fuck anyone twice, anyway.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Someone thinks they saw him in Gotham,” Barsad said five months after Blake had left John at the side of the road away from the city.  
  
“Who?”  
  
“John Blake.”  
  
“Can’t be,” he said. “I killed him.”  
  
“Maybe he’s come back for revenge.”  
  
“What else?”  
  
“Do you want me to shoot him in the face if I happen to see him?” Barsad said in a voice that was too casual.  
  
“No,” Bane said.  
  
  
**  
  
  
He realized someone was following him. Just a shadow at first, but he felt it in his bones. Maybe he was finally losing his mind. He thought about the pile of books in his hotel room and made sure he took walks alone in the narrow alleys where it would be easy to sneak up on him. And then, one day in October, he heard steps from behind his back and turned around.  
  
“Hello,” he said.  
  
John was standing there in the shadows. He was wearing clothes Bane hadn’t seen before, he was holding his head up high, there were no bruises on his face, and he had definitely kept on doing push-ups. He was still tiny, though. And more beautiful than anything or anyone in this fucking city.  
  
Also, he was holding a gun pointed at Bane’s face.  
  
“Hello,” John said. His hand was trembling.


End file.
